h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok supposidly it would be offensive to some people. Great. Well can'y answer your question sorry.

Adib

Right then ok to answer your guestion in part,
To learn Islams view of Jesus go here Islam quide and then think if there view point on Jesus is different then there view point on the bible is?

Adib

Adib, I know Islam's view of Jesus, I've read the Qur'an. Have you read the New Testament?


Alji the Magus (don't forget to record your sun sign @ A712595 ) Pastor of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

Did you read a decent translation? Besides which in answer to the question I was trying to show that the Muslims believe the Bible to be distorted.

Adib

An in answer to your question a long time ago yes.

Adib

OK, this one has taken me some time! Also, people at work are starting to wonder who is spending so long on the net, so this will have to be my final post here for a while. I shall try to leave you all (well, Adib mostly) with some food for thought.

My posts seem to be getting long, and this one is going to be even longer I'm afraid, as 2 of Adib's old posts have been un-moderated since I last looked at them. [Note added later - actually it's really, really long. Sorry.]

Others seem to have taken up the question of DNA similarity, so I will just comment on:

Junk DNA: Ste is the site's resident expert on this, so he is better qualified to comment on this than I am. My understanding is that the 'junk' sections are now regarded as 99% useless rather than totally useless. In any event, the very low mutation rate of this DNA is not in dispute, so this does not affect the use of junk DNA to track hereditary. Or does it? Ste?

It took me a while to find out who Prigogine is. He received his Nobel prize (Chemistry, 1977) for showing that, in open systems, the 2nd law of thermodynamics can lead to greater order, in just the way that creationists always deny that it can. He is also a good example of someone who has held a scientifically unpopular idea which has been absorbed into the mainstream, in just the way that Creationists say that the scientific clique doesn't operate. I know you, Adib,
don't support those views but I am sure that they will come up again here sometime.

I do not know what your quote from him is supposed to show, (is he saying that Darwin did not explain the origin of the first life? that would fit in with Prigogine's field of study) so I will respond with an extract from an interview with him (sorry it's so long, I've tried to cut it down but can't see a way):

"Irreversibility is a key concept, Prigogine believes. Just as certain chemicals, when mixed together, can never "unmix" into their original molecular structures, the universe and what it contains, says Prigogine, are irreversible. "You cannot reverse the evolution [to be clear - he means 'devolpment', not Darwinian evolution] of the universe," he says, "even theoretically. And you cannot predict its future, except in terms of scenarios that depend on never-ending series of . . . crossroads in the chain of causality." Prigogine's definition of open dissipative structures [the area of science he works in] encompasses human social behavior, chemical reactions, and ecosystems: things whose structures are maintained by continuous flows of energy permeating them. And energy flow, Prigogine observes, may become so complex that it causes fluctuations too great for the system to absorb, thus forcing it to reorganize. But each reorganization produces greater complexity and greater likelihood of random fluctuations. The result: more instability, more reorganization; in other words, a quickened creation of living matter into new structures. Evolution." - taken from the interview at http://www.omnimag.com/archives/interviews/prigogin.html.

This leads us neatly on to:


How can energy be organised in pre-life Earth: This is a separate field to evolution. Evolution tells us that all life on Earth descended from a common ancestor. It tells us nothing of how that first ancestor came to exist, and is therefore consistent with both divine or natural creation of the first life. The scientific study of how life could arise from non-life is known as abiogenesis and is a lot more speculative than evolution - there are no fossils or genetic records, so all we can do is surmise from what we know of chemistry and paleoclimatology. We will probably never know exactly what happened - but we can make deductions and eliminate the impossible to come up with a theory (or theories).

Incoming energy would primarily have been in the form of sunlight. This can drive chemical reactions, many of which spontaneously give rise to order. As a simple example, if you drop oil into water, it will form droplets (high order) not spread throughout the water (high entropy). This is not just a trivial example - lipids, the class of molecule that form the walls of every cell, act in a similar way, to give a sheltered inner bubble (or cell). And lipids are not complex molecules, or difficult to form.

Remember that 'order' is just a human idea that often coincides with states of low entropy - entropy is not necessarily the same as disorder.




Archaeopteryx: the quotes you have given do not indicate that the authors believe that archaeopteryx is unrelated to birds or dinosaurs. I will try to draw 2 family trees to show you what I mean: [note - I have just previewed this and it hasn't worked. All the spaces have disappeared. Sorry, I hope you can figure out what I mean - in System B archae is a dead-end but shares a common ancestor (Species X) with birds. Lizards are a separate branch descended from dinosaurs in both systems. And of course 'lizard' is my shorthand for 'reptiles other than dinosaurs'. I know it's not accurate, sorry.]



System A:

dinosaurs
/ archaeopteryx lizards
| |
birds modern lizards



System B:

dinosaurs
/ 'Species X' lizards
/ \ |
birds archaeopteryx more lizards
| |
modern birds modern lizards



Where 'Species X' is a group of critters probably including the recent protoachaeopteryx finds from China and shenzhouraptor. (Protoarchaeopteryx, as the name implies, is older than archae and shenzhouraptor, and so fits neatly into the proposed evolutionary scheme of birds).

You can see that under Scheme B, archaeopteryx is a relation to birds and lizards but not a direct ancestor, more a 'cousin' or 'uncle'. That just means that I have to rephrase my question - do you regard fossils such as protoachaeopteryx as transitionals? It seems we have a neat train from theropods to shenzhouraptor to protoarchaoperyx/sinosauropteryx/caudipteryx to birds and archae. See here - http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200207/23/eng20020723_100179.shtml - for a Chinese press report on the discoveries.

Fedducia is not saying that there are no dinosaur-like features in archaeopteryx - only that it is more closely related to modern birds than to the therapod group of dinosaurs. Perhaps he believes that archae is descended from ornithopodia (pseudosuchia having long fallen out of favour as a candidate), the other group of dionos that has been regarded as a potential ancestor. If so, he is not proposing a new theory, as you present it, but defending a theory going out of fashion. My question remains - why should it have ANY common features to the other two groups? For example, archae has an opposable big toe, which is found in all birds but no dinosaurs. Yet its trunk vertebrae are not fused - all bird vertebrae are, but never dinosaur vertebrae. There is a long list of which bird and reptile features archae does and doesn't have at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html.

Note that Fedducia's second quote, by saying 'in the last 10 years', i.e. from 1989 to 1999, excludes both archae (too old) and the Chinese fossils (too recent).

This find fills in further gaps in the evolutionary history of birds. It fits with the evolutionary view because it contains features common to previously existing species (assumed to be its ancestors) and to species that developed later (assumed to be its descendants). How does it fit into non-evolutionary thought? Why is it so similar to fossils from dates on either side of it? Why is it so similar to archaeopteryx? Is it a bird or a reptile, and why? If neither, why are all modern birds distinct from reptiles when 150 million years ago they were not? Assuming you are arguing from design - that similar problems require similar solutions, hence the ubiquity of DNA, skeletons, etc. - then why have the solutions changed steadily over time? That's a lot of questions, and I encourage you to think for a while about the answers that creationism and evolution give.

See also the following, also taken from TalkOrigins: "Two species of dinosaur have recently been found in northeast China which possess feathers (Qiang et al. 1998). Protoarchaeopteryx robusta and Caudipteryx zoui show regiges, rectrices and plumulaceous feather inpressions. Further, they are not birds, lacking a reverted (backwards facing) big toe and a quadrratojugal squamosal contact, having a quadrojugal joined to the quatrate by a ligament and a reduced or absent process of the ishium. These and other characters group Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx with maniraptoran coelurosaurs rather than birds." I don't know what most of that means, but I think it says that archae is classed as a bird, since it has feathers. The Chinese finds also have feathers, but are even more similar to reptiles than archae is. The TalkOrigins site has a lot of other good stuff, including sketches of all known archae fossils.

In 1998 Britt et al. found evidence in archae bones of the air-sacs (or sponge-like structure) that are found in birds and which were previously thought not to exist in archae. This means we have to improve our estimates of archae's flying/gliding abilities.

There is more detail than any sane person could want at http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/protocauddisc.html.

The TalkOrigins site also includes a note on Protoaves, which I assume is the pre-archae bird find you are talking about. Take a look, I think you will find it is not what you thought.






Punctuated equilibrium: "I mean scientists try to explain the bird as a freak mutation that accured in a dino egg and out popped a bird (thats in the punctuated equilibrium theroy)."

My reply: Eek!

OK, my reply in a little more depth. That is not what punctuated equilibrium says. Imagine you have a species (call it Species A) spread over an area. Now divide the area into two - perhaps with a mountain range or a sea or desert, or even by making it so large that it is difficult to get from one part to another. So now you have two areas ('Area B' and 'Area C'), both containing Species A. But these two groups cannot breed with each-other because they are physically separate, so they slowly start to diverge (this is called speciation and is very well observed).

In due course, the group in Area B changes into Species B and the group in Area C changes into Species C. They are physically separate, so there is no competition between them, but Species B is fitter than Species C. Then, some of Species B somehow cross the divide - they climb the mountain, the sea dries up, whatever. Now the two species are in competition in Area C, and Species C dies out, to be replaced by Species B.

OK, so where is the punctuated equilibrium? In Area B, nowhere. The fossil record will show a neat transition from Species A to Species B. But look in Area C - you get a neat transition from Species A to Species C, then an abrupt transition to Species B with no intermediates. That is punctuated evolution - but nowhere does it call for Species B to spring fully formed from Species C.

A good practical example would be the replacement of native red squirrels in the UK by 'foreign' greys. I hope that you can see now that this is irrelevant to the evolution of birds.

As to how birds actually did develop from reptiles, there are two theories (afaik). One is that tree-climbing reptiles that jump from tree to tree found an advantage in being able to glide (like 'flying' squirrels); the other is that running lizards began to jump to escape pursuing predators (like gazelles or 'flying' fish). In both cases, any slight increase in aerodynamics is of benefit, right up to the formation of full wings (assuming that they do not interfere with existing adaptions). Then any development of musculature or lighter frame to move from gliding to flying would be of benefit - step by step, not all at once. Finally, once true flight is possible, further improvements would be beneficial even if they interfere with ground-based mobility.




Bacterial evolution: Adaptive hereditary change is how evolution is defined. You will note that Spetner (opposing evolution) admits that this happens fairly early on in the debate you cite.

You will note that also that Spetner offers no definition of exactly what prevents a bacterium evolving into a baboon aside from an assertion that 'it is not this kind of evolution'. He states that 'It turns out, however, that a microorganism can sometimes acquire resistance to an antibiotic through a random substitution of a single nucleotide' - erm, that's a beneficial mutation where I come from. Spetner tries to dodge this by claiming it as a loss of information - the handful of atoms where the antibiotic attaches are changed into an arrangement that the antibiotic cannot attach to. Because there are more arrangements that cannot be attached to than arrangements that can, he classes this as a loss of info. He offers no reason why the reverse cannot happen.

This does not change the fact that a beneficial mutation has appeared in the genome and spread throughout the species because it gives a survival advantage. Their argument is over whether this specific mutation is a 'loss of information' or a 'gain of information', and indeed whether the 'information content' of a protein can be measured meaningfully.

Cheers folks, and farewell for now. I must go the way of all researchers. I'll try to drift by if and when possible.

Gif

PS - Adib, I have a copy of the Koran on my shelf at home, which I will read as soon as I have finished struggling through the Bible.

Now that's what I call a post Gif.

Junk DNA:
I personally think that junk DNA is misnamed, it should be something along the lines of "we don't, um, know what it does yet-DNA". But there are a few ideas.

Most junk DNA is made up of selfish genetic elements whose only purpose is to copy themselves again and again and again around a genome, for example the 'Alu' repeat is a primate-specific 300base-pair sequence that is repeated thousands of times around the human genome, sometimes causing disease (this is in itself another bit of evidence that we are primates, and we are related to other primates. Oh, unless God put the Alu repeats there, the mischeivous little deity).

Another possible role for junk DNA is genome size. It's not only genes that are under selection pressure. A genome is a multi-layered entity, with various levels all under selection. Genome size, chromosome number, individual chromosome structure, linked genes, multigene families, genes themselves, etc., all have their own selection pressures. This has given rise to the concept of 'genomic fluidity', as genomes are far from static, solid things. Junk DNA has a role in all of this, and can even add to the adaptability/flexibility of the genome in response to environmental change.

Thanks for the Prigogine stuff Gif, fascinating...

Oh, 'transitional species' (I hate talking in terms that creationists invent that don't actually mean anything). What about the evolution of the horse? Don't we have a full fossil record for the whole of the Equus genus, tracing it's evolution?

Ste

<quote>
'Horse evolution didn't proceed in a straight line. We now know of many other branches of horse evolution. Our familiar Equus is merely one twig on a once-flourishing bush of equine species. We only have the illusion of straight-line evolution because Equus is the only twig that survived.'
See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html#part1

I came across the site last week, of Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist and author. He studied natural sciences at Cambridge and philosophy at Harvard, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow. He took a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Cambridge in 1967 and was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology until 1973. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, San Francisco. For the full bio. see http://www.sheldrake.org/intro/
There is a comprehensive listing of all of the work by Rupert Sheldrake @ http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/

Have a look at his theory of Morphic Resonance @ http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/Morphic/index.html



Alji the Magus (don't forget to record your sun sign @ A712595 ) Pastor of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

Sorryu I have been away (unmasks himself revealing Adib).
I will reply to messages tomorrow as my lap top has low battries. Not using my Pcs at the mo as I am doing some work on them.

Adib

Damn it I am going to have to print of that enourmas post so i can read it at leaseure and reply to it. I'm a bit bust at present.

Thanks for the info on junk DNA ste.

Adib

Did any of you see the article in science america, I can't remember what page. fairly interesting.
Though a bit dated.

Adib

Ok then. How about this. How does evolution explain the reason for a catapiller to cacoon its self and turn in to a butterfly and how does it do this and how can it come from chance?

Adib

Genetic drift, mostly. It just so happened that there was an ecological niche for a critter that ate leaves when it was young and drank nectar when it was mature. Then you had some more random mutations (to account for the existence of many different butterfly species), maybe some allopatric speciation, and the rest is history.

2*10^9 years is a pretty long time, and given the fact that multicellular life was already extant at the beginning of that period it's unsurprising that something with as convoluted a life cycle as the butterfly's emerged. There are, of course, plenty of similarly complicated life cycles, although the majority of them are outside of the animal kingdom; many fungi and some plants undergo alternation of generations, a process that is neither necessary nor efficient. It exists only as a product of chance; something so hideously and needlessly complex would, I believe, not be the product of intelligent design.

Of course, this calls into debate the values of the designer; if we assume intelligent design, we must then assume a sense of almost human artistry that appreciates complication for its own sake. Not too hard to imagine, honestly, but also somewhat illogical.

Cheers

Humans too go through a limited metamorphosis at puberty. Once that has got started, evolutionary presssure can make it more and more extreme until you end up with something totally different from its larval form.

But of course I'm not here ...

Gif

Humans do not grow wings etc.
Any way I don't see how evolution can explain the caterpillers knowing of spinning the cacoon in a safe place. Plus why did it and how did it devolp the ability to spin thread and make a cacoon. It is not survivel of the fitist if it spends a while in a cacoon where it is vulnerble to predators surely. Plus how come they evolved symetrical wing patterns and stuff and why, as there are only a few butterflies that have the scarey eye pattern on the. They are all bright colours which would make them more visable to predaters and the population that does have the eye pattern are not more dominent than the ones that do not have the pattern. Which suggests that they are eaten a lot as well.

Adib

Humans do not grow wings etc.

True. But they do change their body-shape; shoulders broaden in a man, hips widen and breasts grow in a woman, pubic hair appears, etc. This change gives a starting-point - a division between infant and adult forms that evolution can expand upon. Chemically, this is due to the changes of hormone levels within the body. Although this is quite limited in humans, the same hormone changes can have much more dramatic effects in other animals - more on why this is relevant later.

Any way I don't see how evolution can explain the caterpillers knowing of spinning the cacoon in a safe place.

First, please note that, as phrased, your point is slightly misleading - caterpillars do not seem to judge 'danger' when placing their cocoons. Each species of caterpillar eats only one species of plant, and the caterpillar will never leave that plant even if there are safer plants nearby. Any danger-minimisation is limited to choosing the underside of the leaf near the stem where the cocoon is less visible.

Have you read anything by Richard Dawkins? He is one of the leading pop-science writers arguing the case for evolution atm. One of his books in particular, The Selfish Gene (the only one of his I've read!), starts out with some examples of cases where behaviour in insects clearly is genetically controlled. I think that his example is genetically engineered bees that display repetitive behaviour in sealing eggs in honeycomb cells. I will look up the details again when I get the chance - however, the point that I am making is that there is little doubt that genetics can control behaviour in insects. (There are still questions over how much behaviour is controlled this way, of course - Dawkins is not claiming that human behaviour is genetically controlled. He does go a long way though - he claims that since beavers' dam-building behaviour seems to be genetic, a beaver-lake is an expression of the beaver genome in just the way that a flat tail or fur is!)

Once you accept that caterpillars' behaviour is controlled (or just influenced) by genetics, you have a fairly complete answer to your question. These are choices that can easily be 'programmed' by genetics since they are not complex judgements. All the genes need to say is something like 'find a small, dark space before forming the cocoon'.

Once you realise that this choice is genetic, it is easy to see how evolution takes place - putting it simply, caterpillars that form cocoons where they are easily visible are less likely to survive to produce eggs.

As a final note, is choosing a safe place to cocoon any harder than choosing a safe place to hibernate? Just a thought.

Plus why did it and how did it devolp the ability to spin thread and make a cacoon.

Presumably as a modification of something else - perhaps their ancestor spun webs, perhaps it's a modified form of waste excretion. I don't know the answer - but the difficulty is choosing between the alternatives, not that there is no way it could happen.

It is not survivel of the fitist if it spends a while in a cacoon where it is vulnerble to predators surely.

The time spent in a cocoon is an evolutionary disadvantage. But to counter this, the butterfly gets the chance to specialise twice instead of once. It has an 'eating machine' young phase and a 'mating machine' adult phase. Both of these are much more efficient than a compromise design 'eating and mating' machine could be. In fact most moths cannot eat at all in their adult stage. The benefits of this outweigh the penalty for spending time as a cocoon. It is the whole life-cycle that is fit or unfit, not just the cocoon stage.

Perhaps your example is over-complicated. You could make your point better by asking why we sleep - all animals do it but it seems pointless. Presumably there is an advantage that we don't understand yet.

Plus how come they evolved symetrical wing patterns and stuff

Most animal markings are roughly symmetrical, as are butterfly wings. I have never given much thought to why this should be - at a guess I would say that it is the same reason that most organisms are roughly symmetrical. I don't quite see why symmetric patterns should be a problem for evolution anyway. Can you explain your question?

Is there a creationist rationale behind God's apparent disinterest in asymmetric creatures? (Of the millions of creatures on the planet, the only asymmetric one I can think of offhand is the flat-fish.)

and why, as there are only a few butterflies that have the scarey eye pattern on the. They are all bright colours which would make them more visable to predaters and the population that does have the eye pattern are not more dominent than the ones that do not have the pattern. Which suggests that they are eaten a lot as well.

I think that the 'eye pattern scaring birds' is a bit of a myth. During their caterpillar stage, they store up noxious chemicals from the plant leaves, which make them distasteful to birds. By vividly identifying themselves with bright colours and distinctive patterns, they warn the birds that they are inedible. Remember that it is genes that are being selected, not individuals, so a few casualties as birds learn not to eat the bright-coloured caterpillars are worth it in the long run. Those individuals cannot reproduce - but their genes are shared with other coloured individuals who are now much safer than they were before.

Moths do not store toxins, and consequently do not have coloured wings and are largely nocturnal. So we do see exactly what evolution would predict - those species that are in danger from birds are camouflaged, those that are not in danger are not camouflaged (and presumably find it easier to find a mate and certainly avoid birds mistaking them for edible species).

Again, is there a creationist reason why Allah should choose to make all inedible or venemous creatures brightly coloured, and so few others?

So how did butterflies evolve?

So to summarise; since you are claiming that there is no possible route by which butterflies could evolve, I will provide a method here. Note that I am not claiming that there is any evidence to support the idea that this particular route actually happened - you claim that there are zero possible routes for butterfly evolution, I am claiming that there are more than zero, therefore evolution is not disproved. The fact that there is more than one possible route and we do not know which one is true reflects our own lack of knowledge, not a flaw in evolution.

So here goes. Let us start with some generic flying insect as a 'butterfly ancestor'. It hatches from an egg and at first is incapable of flight. Its wings slowly firm up so that it can fly - this probably takes a couple of hours. It flies around, eats, mates and dies - hopefully in that order! So it is much like many modern insects.

Young and adult forms

Evolution can then work on various things. The time spent as an egg can be reduced by having the insect hatch and start eating before completing its growth. Therefore the egg can be smaller to start, since it needs less nutrients. This will allow more eggs to be laid at once, increasing the chance of at least one egg surviving. But the insect now spends longer between hatching and being able to fly. So now we have an organism that goes through two distinct stages - a flightless 'young' and an 'adult'.

The wings in the young are undeveloped and useless - worse than useless, since they are a handicap. In our hypothetical example, evolution favours individuals of this species that eat while young to store up energy for their adulthood. So evolutionary pressure causes the wings to develop later and faster - the 'young' phase specialises in eating and storing energy, the 'adult' in mating, as stated.

Colours

Simultaneously, caterpillars that eat certain plants become distasteful to birds. Birds therefore tend not to eat caterpillars they find on those plants. So selective pressure favours caterpillars that live on those plant species. Anything that then marks the caterpillar out then reduces its chances of accidentally being killed by a bird that probably won't eat it anyway - any bright colour or obvious pattern is selected for. Camouflage now becomes an evolutionary disadvantage.

Going back to the hormones from above, did you know that it is possible for an animal to have genes which are not expressed? Another, separate gene can allow or prevent a feature from being expressed. For example, a peacock's tail is only present in the male. The female still contains all the genes for it, but it requires the male hormone (restosterone) to have any effect. Something similar causes wings to be expressed in an adult but not in a young. I have shown how a difference between the infant and adult could start - now evolutionary pressure works in different directions on the two, so they become more and more different. The young needs to eat, to store up toxins (for the birds) and energy (to grow). The adult needs the bright colours, wings and reproductive system (including the pheromones and antennae necessary to find a mate).

Cocoons

As this change becomes more and more extreme, the insect becomes debilitated during the change. It has to find a safe place to hide while this happens (or rather, evolution favours individuals who find a safe place to change). Any added form of protection - such as the armour provided by a cocoon - is then of benefit. As I said above, I don't know where that came from, but my point is that once again there are several possible mechanisms, not none. (Someone with a better understanding of genetics than me might be able to eliminate some of them.)

So you are left with a flightless creature that hatches, eats, forms a cocoon and then emerges as a brightly-coloured flying insect. I think that covers most features of a butterfly, let me know if I missed any.

Like I said, no guarantee that this is right - I would be amazed if it is even close - but since there is at least one possible route, we are now arguing only over the mechanism, so evolution has not been disproved here.

btw, Adib, I notice that in your other conversations you accept that black holes and the big bang exist. I am sure you are aware that there is far more supporting evidence for evolution than for either of these theories. Any comments?

Gif

Hi I'm back for a bit. Sorry I have been busy and may be still for a while. Though I have managed to write on other sites the problem is we usually end up with really long posts which I will print of and respon to now.

anyway untill I next post check out this site and see what you think.

http://members.aol.com/masadi/evol.htm

Anyway at the bottem of your last post yousaid about more evidence about evolution than big bang and black holes. Er No there is for big bang and black holes actually.

For starters Black holes have been observed 'feeding' and passing in front of suns and as for the Big bang hardly anyone disbelieves about the Big bang as there is lots of evidence to prove it. Like cosmic background radiation and the expanstion of the universe etc.

Adib

Hi Adib, folx,

This will be a short post, I promise!

I was just trying to point out that the evidence for black holes is very limited (spiral-shaped stars and orbital 'wobbles' - no-one has seen one pass in front of a star afaik) - they are mostly based on highly theoretical quantum mechanics and experiments in Earth-bound bubble-chambers. Ditto the big bang.

Evolution is supported by fossils, genetics and even direct observation. In terms of evidence to back it up, evolution wins hands down. Yet you 'believe' in black holes but not evo theory - is this based on the evidence?

I'm off to look at your link now.

Gif

Gif nice to hear from you. Well firstly yes they have seen a black hole pass in front of a star.I can't remember much but I was watching a program about them and these astromonists looked at one area of space for years and then one day fond what they where looking for which is the distorting of light as it is intercepted from a black hole passing in front of a star.

I followed your link Adib and was greatly disappointed.

Irrespective of any disclaimer that denies links with Christian Creationism, the arguments presented are all, ... all, (I'll say that again), ALL exactly the same as the arguments presented by the Christian Creationists. The words used are almost the same.

The Christian Creationist viewpoint is full of fallacies, faulty logic, mis-quotes and distortion.

I can't be bothered with this particularly, but basically anyone that thinks Adib is presenting an original argument here is very much mistaken.